How Online Qualitative Research is Like Buying a Car… and How It Can Be Made Simpler

All of us know what buying a car is like. The sheer volume of vehicles and features can make the experience overwhelming. The rise in solutions like Carmax and Carvana, as well as online pages like AutoTrader, are all the advent of consumers seeking a simpler solution that allows them to narrow their search while avoiding the pressures of the buying experience.

There’s a reason few industries are the butt of jokes…but when a universally known put down is associated with your industry, it’s never good (one of my favorite movie lines actually, making fun of the two most derided jobs, making it that much better: “You don’t know the law Danny, you’re nothing. You’re a used car salesman…deal with that”).

In online qualitative research, there’s a bevvy of services and solutions as well, and few companies actually put all of the elements together (recruitment, project management, online research tools, and potentially moderation) to make it an easy one-stop buying solution. There are 3 keys to making your virtual research experience better:

 

1. Know thy tools

Just like with cars, there are dozens of online tools a researcher can use that attack their research needs. But those tools vary in features, they vary in complexity, and in their support. Just like your automobile, you need to decide what features are important to you and your project. These features often not only add in complexity of cost, but they also add to the most important cost of all: time. Time for you or your moderator to learn the system and features, and time for your participants to learn the technology as well.

Working with a supplier that knows the marketplace and tools, and which features will serve your needs best, is crucial to saving time and money, by getting you to the solution that can best meet your needs.

 

2. Good recruiting partners are critical

The biggest errors are a combination of underestimating the difficulty of the population you are seeking to connect, and how best to ensure the population you seek is properly screened. When you purchase a car, the brand you choose will not only dictate price but will also likely influence your happiness with your final purchase. Not all cars ride the same, they are tuned and built differently according to the driver’s preferred needs.

Similarly, recruiting is as much “art” as it is science. Knowing what you seek, if it entails any product purchase behaviors, is a complexity of questions and how to ask them to ensure you get the right person for your study. Having an experienced recruiting team you can engage and consult…even just for initial screener development (why we put so much money into qualitative research design training for our Project Director and Account Manager positions)…is a small price but huge savings in ensuring you get it right the first time. Speed is often a critical element in your qualitative research project as well: getting it right the first time, quickly, and working with recruiting firms that specialize in qualitative research, ensures speed, which leads to time and money.

 

3. Remember where your research ranks in the participant’s Maslow’s Hierarchy

Numerous studies we have conducted with consumers clearly demonstrate that consumers value giving their opinion and appreciate companies in research listening to them in order to make their worlds better. And yes, the money is nice too. But never forget these people have jobs—they have other responsibilities (kids, elderly parents, etc.)—and your research ranks somewhere between 10-20 on their hierarchy. Unlike your car purchase, this is not one of the bigger purchase decisions consumers will make, participating in your research. It is a big deal to you however, as my mother used to say: “you attract more flies with honey, baby, than you do vinegar.”

Never forget people are the key to our success in helping brands succeed, and just because it can be done from their computer or iPhone doesn’t make it that much easier, or less burdensome.

But beyond being nice: remember what efforts will consumers have to make to complete your research? And the more you ask of them—screener complexity, number of assignments to complete, overall time, and the number of times they must engage—the more likely they are to not do everything you want. Or your recruiting company will have to do a lot more than send a text or email reminder. You’ll need a team with service support that will be the participant’s “guide” through the process. There’s a reason getting groups of people to do something (anything) is often compared to herding cats!

Like a car purchase, there’s a lot that goes into creating an online qualitative project and utilizing all of the virtual resources needed. The next time you’re looking to implement online research and utilize the plethora of virtual research resources available to you (just like when you’re buying your next car) ask yourself these key questions, have your research strategy ready, and then get experts in the process to help you get the right solution created for you and your project. Once you find this partner, I’m confident you will find the online research experience easier, and less time consuming, giving you more time to answer the questions and strategies you are seeking to execute (allowing you to get onto the next problem to solve).